# of rubber band wraps on tail gate

[BASE_689]

Hello there!!!
When I jump no slider, I ALWAYS do 3 wraps (after having larks head knotted the rubber band on one end of tail gate itself) of rubber band around tail gate. I have never had any problem with 3 wraps (hesitations, off-headings (tail gate induced), delays in opening (pressurization), whatever...). And I am happy with 3 wraps.
When my jumping mates jump no slider, they ALWAYS do 2 wraps of rubber band around tail gate. My jumping mates have never had any problem with 2 wraps (premature opening of tail gate, line over, whatever...). And they are happy with 2 wraps.
What is my question? It is about to come.
Now we have come to a point :* where we have lots of objects, some freefallable, some SLable. It happened more than once that I showed up at the fun fair with a freefall setup, then, because of wind, because of whatever, we decided to switch to jump a SL object. It takes me few minutes to remove my (normal) bridle and my 46" PC, to take the 4 Multi lines out of the sheath and to install my Special Bridle (a 5.5 mm 1800 kg B.L. dyneema climbing rope with sewn loops for rapid link and PC (a 48" as back up in this case) and with curved pin and with special knot (20 cm below PC attachment point) where to attach the break cord to, but this is another story). End of SL rigging. What I CANNOT do at this stage is to reduce the number of tail gate wraps from 3 to 2 (tail gate is by now jolly deep inside within the packed canopy... ;( ).
EVERY TIME I jump a SL configuration having 3 wraps I get bad openings (90° left, 90° right, sort of delays/hesitations, whatever...).
I know perfectly well that jumping SL you cannot have more than 2 wraps around tail gate, but I cannot help this issue when I show up with 3 wraps for freefall and then we switch to SL jump, I cannot help in this case... ;(
My question(s) is (are):

How many rubber band wraps do you do when you jump? For freefall? For SL jumps? ALWAYS same wraps (=2) when you do freefall and SL jumps?

Would it be considered "safe" if I did 2 rubber band wraps in [/b]EVERY jump I am going to do? Both freefall and SL jumps? So I don't worry anymore when switching from freefall to SL?

Thanks to you all, mates!!! :7


Stay safe out there
Blue Skies and Soft Walls
BASE #689 :D
e-mail: base_689@yahoo.com

[greeny]

This is just what I do with my limited experience............

I do 3 raps on both F/F and S/L jumps useing the black rubber bands I get from BR. I don't larks foot my band to my tail gate as I was told this could increase the chances of me loseing my tail gate. I lose a rubber band every time I jump ( sorry for the polution ), but I've never lost my tail gate or had any problems I noticed.

My 3 raps with no larks foot I think is about the same as 2 raps with a larks foot.

[BASE_689]

> My 3 wraps with no larks foot I think is about
> the same as 2 wraps with a larks foot.

What I did not say clearly is that when I do the larks head knot I do it VERY VERY TIGHT indeed, in a manner that what comes "out" of the larks head knot is 90÷95% of rubber band length, so there is not so much difference in length between "my rubber band WITH larks head knot" and a rubber band WITHOUT larks head knot.
Still...
All the times (3 out of 4) I SL jumped with 3 wraps (coming from freefall set up...), I didn't get nice openings ;( . The only time I SL jumped with 2 wraps (because I planned to do SL since packing at home), I got a nice opening. Yes, one jump is not enough to say "OK, it's standard practice", but on the other hand, nearly all my openings in freefall with 3 wraps are really nice on heading openings!!!
So I thought that switching my 3 wraps from freefall to SL takes me from nice openings to bad openings...
Any comment on this?

Stay safe out there
Blue Skies and Soft Walls
BASE #689 :D
e-mail: base_689@yahoo.com

[bps]

Hi 689 --

My friend, it's good to hear that you are doing well and making some jumps!

I've pondered the same thoughts as yours many times. In my somewhat limited SL experience, I have 34 static-line jumps from 7 different objects. 8 of those 34 jumps were done using 2 wraps of the tail-gate and 26 of the jumps were done using 3 wraps on the tail-gate. I always use a regular rubber-band that is not lark-headed onto the tailgate. By regular rubber band, I mean a tan skydiving rubber band used to stow micro-line that is cut in half.

I have yet to have found any disadvantage in 3 wraps. With that being said, I have heard of 1 time that a person had a tail-gate hesitation on a low PCA...but have not heard of any problems since then.

I used 2 wraps when I knew that I was going to be doing a really low jump, but tried to find a rubber band that wasn't particularily loose, as I had some fear of it not being tight enough to do the job. I also found that if I'm jumping really low, I feel better pshycologically knowing that it is not held together tightly.

The fair-haired Austrailian published an article some years back that basically stated that he felt definitive nose-first inflations (which the tail-gate encourages) produce faster and cleaner openings. With that being said, I tend to feel more comfortable with 3 wraps if I'm not desperately low when I leave the object.

In researching my logbook, out of the 34 SL jumps that I've made, I have had one 60 left, one 30 left, and the other 32 have been within 10 degrees of a perfect on-heading.

I'm of the personal opinion that if we could take out every single variable (and there are a lot of variables in a parachute deployment) except for the difference of 2 wraps vs. 3 wraps, I don't think there is a difference as far as deployment heading is concerned. Of course, this is just my gut feeling and we can't really quantify this with our small statistical sample.

Now I do wonder if exit weights could make a difference. I'm 198 body weight with an exit weight of roughly 223 or so, where as I know that you are much lighter than that. Could it be that the forces applied to the system are great enough that it could overcome the 3 wraps easier than someone who is lighter and therefore applies less force during the opening sequence? Maybe that is something we should consider...

What do you think?

C-ya!

Bryan